The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority yesterday released an information paper outlining current practice in risk culture in a range of banking, insurance and superannuation businesses. APRA aims to ensure that risk-taking in financial institutions is conducted within reasonable bounds and that risks are clearly identified and well-managed.The paper includes an observation that that while there has clearly been a stronger focus on risk culture in recent years amongst APRA-regulated institutions, continued effort and ongoing attention is required by institutions to better understand and manage their risk cultures.The smaller end of the sector was happy with progress."APRA's information paper on risk culture correctly points out that certain behaviours impede risk management, and these include pursuing short-term financial interests, including personal interests, with little or no consideration of customer interests," Mark Degotardi chief executive of COBA said.The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services reflected on industry practices on risk in late 2015, and in the paper released today finds that approaches to understanding and managing risk culture are still at a relatively early stage of development, with many institutions grappling with how best to: clearly articulate what type of risk culture they aspire to; identify any specific weaknesses in their current risk culture; and effectively address those weaknesses.Underpinning much of this work has been APRA's Prudential Standard CPS 220 Risk Management, which came into effect on 1 January 2015. Amongst other things, CPS 220 requires each Board of an authorised deposit-taking institution or insurer to form a view of the risk culture in their institution, identify any desirable changes to that risk culture, and ensure the institution takes steps to address those changes.The APRA information paper on risk culture is here; http://www.apra.gov.au/CrossIndustry/Documents/161018-Information-Paper-Risk-Culture.pdf